Gatanui

What just happened. O.o -Gata

Thanks everyone. It took a while, but my Scarox review is online. -Gata

Prepare the LEGO® Hero Factory Team for emergency action! The evil brains have latched onto a dune crawler and transformed it into a venomous spider beast with red eyes! Stay away from its deadly striking blades and spiked spider legs! Not even armor can protect you from its armor-piercing poison fangs. Send that brain-infected bug back into the sand dune it came from! Set name: SCAROX Set Number: 44003 Price: 9.99 EUR / 7.99 GBP / 9.99 USD Pieces: 46 Year of release: Winter 2013 Size: Small Presentation/Box As you probably all knew, Scarox comes in one of the bags which got known as Capri-Sun-bags in 2012 due to their reminiscence to said product. The size of the bag is identical to that of the small-sized sets from 2012, so all in all, the packaging has not changed at all. Decide for yourself whether this is an advantage or not. I for my part like the bags, as they are more practical than canisters. The only downside I see when comparing them to canisters is that the bags have no playability function whatsoever, whereas the canisters in BIONICLE and Hero Factory and their components used to have different play functions apart from merely serving as packaging (The lids of the Toa Mata canisters served as Suva, the canisters themselves being transport vehicles inside which the Toa Mata washed on the shores of Mata Nui, while the Hero Factory canisters could be used as landing capsules called Hero Pods). What is this mysterious flipping function advertised for Scarox' upper limbs? We'll see. Building As soon as we rip the bag open and let all the pieces roll out... wait! It turns out the pieces come all in an additional, transparent plastic bag, which we will have to open before starting the build. Merely the most interesting piece of the new Hero Factory line, namely the brain-crawler-sluggish-thingie which we will regard more closely later on, comes loose in the bag. Once you have gotten all pieces out for the bag, you open the instruction manual and start building. "Instruction manual? Why should I need an instruction manual for a Hero Factory set?", you may be wondering. Well, although building Scarox proved to be all but challenging, I must admit that I would not have known how to build the back... at least not right away, as his back displays an interesting technic construction with a red technic liftarm acting as "lever", which enables us pull the upper pair of arms up and down. But more about that later. For now, let's just say that I am always grateful for the integration of Technic in the building process of Hero Factory sets. Let me close this part of the review with one final remark: Building Scarox' head was suprisingly fun, as it was the most innovative head construction we have seen a while. And who doesn't like building something completely different for a change? Set Design/Pieces Once you finish building the set, you obtain a villain which, at least at first sight, is mostly coherent and visually appealing. The colour scheme is well balanced, basically featuring three colors: Bright gold, black and accents of transparent-bright-green. Being out of rubber, the brain invader does not have the same tasty color as the poison (?) fangs and the head, but personally, I can live with it. What I find more disappointing is the number of gold pieces, having preferred at least two more gold cladding pieces. Gold is a rather rare color in LEGO sets and mas has always been known to feel attracted to gold, so I can only say that it would not have hurt if the designers had hauled in a few more pieces with that shiny color. Speaking of pieces: Scarox totals a respectable amount of 46 pieces. Out of those, eleven are new molds or recoloured, the absolute hightlights being the new headpiece, Scarox' face and the brain invader. We already talked about the headpiece in previous reviews, so let me sum up the main impressions: Although it is pretty obvious that the new headpiece was derived from the Glatorian heads, it is lacking a face, which may be a plus and a con alike. One thing is obvious, though: This headpiece is the most versatile LEGO has ever produced, featuring a total of 6 connection possibilities; out of those, one ball joint connection, 4 axle holes and one system claw connector. Consequently, the head can be arranged in two different ways, the flat headside being the face for the heroes and the claw-connector side being the face for the villains. But I am sure this gorgeous piece cannot only be used as head and I bet we will be seeing other creative applications before too long. Next on the list is the brain invader piece, which may not be as versatile as the headpiece, but makes up for it with its awesome look. Interestingly enough, this piece is actually composed of two pieces, which to my disappointment cannot be detached from each other: The rubbery, translucent part and a red, hard plastic piece which emerges through the rubber piece as two horns and the brain creepers' eyes. When we turn the brain creeper piece upside down, we also notice an axle connector on the hard plastic piece through which our parasitic brain can attach to its victims' headpiece. I am not sure whether this piece will come in handy for MOCing, but you might want to prank your sister or your little brother putting this creepy crawler thingie in her/his bed. And last but not least: Scarox' face, which completely explains the name choice. You would certainly not want to meet a creature with this looks on your own or in a dark room. Something I should remark is that you can plug the the tail of brain creeper into Scarox' back, giving him a Piraka-esque look... or at least this is what the instruction booklet tells us, for in reality, doing so will massively infringe the head's free movement and the tail will pop out almost instantaneously anyway. Not that this disappoints me very much, but just a heads up, LEGO: If there is something that doesn't work, don't pretend it does and there won't be reason for your customers to be disappointed. Playability There are two aspects which limit the playability. First of all: The short limbs. For my taste, the amrs are slightly too short and unarticulated. Please do not misunderstand me: It is not a torture to move Scarox' arms, but I would have preferred longer arms with two three articulation points and not just two. Then again, some people out there may disagree with me. Second: The back construction, which allows the proud owner of Scarox to swing the upper two arms forward and backward... a play function which adds to Scarox' menacing appearance and may be fun for some children but which has been implemented in a better way. I for my part would have found it better if the construction featured a rubber belt so the arms would quickly rush forward and backward instead of falling back, which looks somehow cheap. Again, I may stand alone with this opinion. All in all, Scarox is still fun to play with, though, and your heroes will have a hard time battling this four-armed alien. Final Thoughts Pros Gold!!! Most versatile headpiece of all time! Brain invader piece looks awesome! Cons Action feature could be better Short arms All in all, Scarox is a decent villain, with pros and cons mostly outbalanced. I myself am not very fond of this year's villains, but if you insist on getting one, I would recommend you either get Bruizer or Scarox. The decision is up to you... unless one of the brain invaders attaches to your head and influences your decision. Let's just hope that that won't happen... Nevermind, Rocka took care of it already. -Gata

It's actually a prequel, not a sequel. I imagine the story is going to be quite different from the first movie, too. -Gata

There already is. -Gata

I wanted to make one and it's almost done, but with university having started again on Monday I didn't get around to it (or rather my brother who edits the photos). Hopefully we'll get it done this weekend. Lol, I had gotten tired of the old website and now I want it back. :P -Gata

Good point. I get an error message when attempting to access the website now. Let's see what happens. EDIT: It's back with no changes. :/ -Gata

Another reason why it was probably made with portable devices in mind is that the video players seem to use HTML, not Flash. There is no other site on LEGO.com doing this. -Gata

The website shouts at your face that it was designed with tablets and other handheld devices in mind. Huge buttons and large, while few, text. What bugs me most is all the content that has gone lost with this update. >.< The character animations are nice, though. -Gata

I agree, that poster has turned out nicely. ^^ -Gata

Well thanks a lot for clarifying this for me. -Gata

At least it's good to know it's not an issue on my end. ^^ -Gata

You mean Norton approached LEGO about making Thundercats sets and LEGO went off and copied his concept (including much of the art) instead of making a licensed theme? That would be utterly disappointing of LEGO. -Gata

I'm having the same issues with videos on LEGO.com. -Gata

As long as money is involved, men will act the most stupid ways. :/ All the patent wars in the tech market are barely different from that (a tiny company has seriously sued Microsoft for copying their tile concept :P). -Gata

Not sure how the beasts will fit in those tiny rocket ships where the braliens barely fitted. :P I'm pretty sure Dragon Bolt will have a shorter tail, That's way too long for his price point. Shouldn't be much of an issue, though. -Gata

The summer wave looks like the best of all time. Every single set (though Aquagon is too hard to recognize, but I could see yellow bone pieces on him!) looks awesome. If Dragon Bolt got dark blue cladding that would be fantastic, but he looks good enough already. Great find! :) -Gata

Just found it, too. Obviously the website was supposed to go live today, but it hasn't. Maybe we'll have more luck tomorrow. Looking forward to the MMO, as I neither have a PS Vita nor a 3DS (or any other console besides NES for that matter :P). -Gata

Totally. We've had so many good soundtracks by now. I believe the old website from 2010 was originally intended to have some songs for download but they never came. :/ -Gata

This is the best I could get: Jet Rocka does look quite strange...all the others seem quite good for now, though. EDIT: Just noticed on the teaer video that Surge has a trans dark blue 3M shell on his left arm that I had missed until now. :) -Gata

That was really great. XD I was watching that video when I was suddenly like "wait a second...that looks like some HF summer sets", then I switched to full-screen and HD and immediately recognized Frost Beast. :P I couldn't help but knocking at the desk and exclamating a complacent "hah!" before running over to my brother to show him. :P -Gata

I'd have expected the website to be updated today... :/ -Gata

Well as I remember they are updated on Mondays or, mostly, on Tuesdays. :P EDIT: The set list is probably authentic. Go to 0:46 of this video (watch it in HD and full-screen if you want to recognize anything). You can clearly recognize the ice villain on the bottom and what seems like Jet Rocka (you can even recognize his name on the picture) on the top. -Gata

Where is my new website? :( -Gata

Head for the LEGO® Hero Factory briefing room immediately, ROCKA! The evil brains are rampaging through the galaxy and must be defeated. This is one tough mission, so you have been equipped with LEGO Hero Factory Recon Team weapons: a plasma blade sword, a 360-degree spinning razor shield, armored visor and hero core locking clamps. With equipment like this, you're ready for anything those evil brains can throw at you! Set name: ROCKA Set Number: 44002 Price: 9.99 EUR / 7.99 GBP / 9.99 USD Pieces: 43 Year of release: Winter 2013 Size: Small Presentation/Box And this year we get the bag packaging from last year once again, albeit with a new theme, obviously. For the first time, the Hero Factory logo is printed perpendicularly, probably to make space for the menacing brain hovering over Rocka's head, not visible on this picture. Rocka stands in a heroic, almost knightly pose. Considering the kind of equipment he wears, that's most likely no coincidence. The back promotes spinning shield and flipping visor features, but more focus is granted to the combiner this time. I haven't tried it yet but the combiners seem to be getting better every year. Note how they purposefully gave Rocka and Scarox similar colours so they could be combined without causing any chromatic atrocities like the Splitface/Surge combiner had. Again, the game code comes in the Hero Core just like last year. This time, the game app is advertised on the packaging as well. Building You can't really expect any challenges from a small-sized set, though this one comes with a small amount of Technic we'll come back to later. However, new and beautiful pieces you can't help admire will add at least thirty seconds to the build this time. :P This said, let's talk a bit about the pieces included in this set. Set Design/Pieces Rocka comes with 43 pieces - the smallest piece count this wave, but still fairly impressive for a small-sized set. It gets better, though. I count five new molds (left batch) and seven recoloured pieces with a total of four recolours (right batch). Don't let the pics fool you: while the visor, head and cladding are transparent, the blade is only translucent. I think it's enough to say about the recolours that they are beautiful and worth getting. 4M shells in gold, gunmetal and trans-bright green (which I and my brother call "apple green")? Check. You can't get enough of 4M shells. It's already worth it for the glorious trans-bright green alone, though. :P Add an awesome big golden dish to that, and you're set. Let's take a closer look at the most notable of the new pieces, the head. I think the photo above does justice to the glory of the sword, the helmet, the torso and the visor, but the new head deserves some special treatment. We asked, and we got. This is the new head design LEGO will surely be eager to use for the coming years. Not only has it a remolded ball cup but it adds two new connection points to the ones the Glatorian head had, one at the front and a clip connection on the back used for the visor. Gone is the Iron Man face, though. This said, the new head has no face at all. I guess this is fine, though, as this makes it far more versatile and the face is covered up most of the time anyway. If you want a real face for one of your MOCs you can still use a Glatorian head, which has roughly the same size as the new head. Alright, enough of the pieces. Time to discuss some design! What can you say about Rocka? He looks noble and heroic. His colour scheme, even with the added bits of silver on the hands and feet, looks good. He has two hands, which is great, too. At first sight, there are no design issues to be seen. That is until you get to the back. What is that protruding red piece, you ask? Is that LEGO's answer to the apparently still present hollow-back problem? Seriously? Well, in a way it is. Not the piece itself is the solution, however, you can attach the shield on there so Rocka carries it on his back, covering it at the same time. A great idea reminiscent of the good old Toa Metru. The execution could have been better, though. Not only is the red piece kind of eye-glaring, the shield sticks out way too much when looked at it sideways. There could have been more clever ways to fix it, though I'm not sure the price point would have allowed it. This is not really an issue, though. If it bothers you so much, simply remove the silly red piece or come up with a better solution yourself. ;) Before I move on to the playability, I'm going to point out some good design decisions. The torso armor is not only an excellent piece, the four golden reinforced Exo-Force arms also complement it very well, giving it more colour, thickness and even a small play feature. Obviously, you can open or close the clasp around the Hero Core to offer protection against evil brains. Playability Rocka's got the usual thirteen points of articulation, which is still something to be happy about, but not particularly notable anymore either. Gone is the launcher in favor of a couple of melee play features. You can flip the visor up and down, as well as the Exo-Force arms on the torso as I said earlier. You can also spin the shield which is a great touch. You'll never get enough fun out the swooshing sound it makes. :P All this together is quite good for a small-sized set. Not much else to say about his playability, so just gazet thy upon these pictorial manifests of Rocka's knightly heroism. Final Thoughts Pros Glorious new and recoloured pieces Good colour scheme Trans-bright green! Looks awesome Cons Silly back Overall, what can you say about this set? He's quite a treat to look at, and I can imagine he's great to play with as well. If you want a good-looking small set with lots of marvelous pieces, this may be your choice. Way to start the new year, Rocka. -Gata